


A Constellation’s Just a Picture in the Sky

by starfishstar



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Community: rs_games, M/M, RS Games 2015, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-23
Updated: 2015-11-26
Packaged: 2018-05-02 23:51:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5268578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starfishstar/pseuds/starfishstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s a war on and all is not easy for the young members of the Order of the Phoenix, but Remus – nineteen, in love and sharing a flat with Sirius – is happier than he ever thought it possible to be. …Until one morning a knock at their door heralds an unexpected visitor from Sirius’ past, begging help with a desperate mission.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [stereolightning](http://archiveofourown.org/users/phalaenopsis/pseuds/stereolightning) for beta-reading!
> 
> Written for the 2015 [Remus/Sirius Games](http://rs-games.livejournal.com/), prompt #22 – [a constellation chart](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/rsgamesmods/15557380/61492/61492_original.png).

“How about this,” Sirius said, his elbows sprawled on the breakfast table and his most winsomely persuasive gaze fixed on Remus. “If you do the washing up, I’ll pop over to Prongs and Lily and see if they need help getting set up in the new flat.”

“You berk,” Remus laughed, feeling fond warmth curling low in his stomach, a deep contentment. How was it possible, even with the war and the Order and everything they had to fight against, to feel so happy? “You _want_ an excuse to go see James and Lily, now they’re back from their honeymoon. So how is that a fair trade?”

Sirius tossed his head, for all the world like a dog shaking off water – some Animagus habits, Remus had noticed, stayed with him even when he wasn’t transformed – then dipped a finger absently into the honeypot instead of using the perfectly good spoon that lay right there beside it. Remus rolled his eyes and moved the pot out of Sirius’ reach. Sirius ran his tongue along own honey-covered finger, which was highly distracting. And Sirius clearly knew it, to judge from the way he was smirking.

“Okay,” Sirius said, releasing his finger from his mouth with an indecent pop. Dark hair flopped in his eyes as he leaned forward, eyes dancing. “New plan: How about you do the washing up, I’ll finish off this toast, then we’ll both go see Prongs?”

Remus snorted, even as he shivered pleasantly at the low register to which Sirius’ voice had dropped. Surely only Sirius Black could make “I’ll finish off the toast” sound like a proposition. Surely, indeed, this whole life was too good to be true – waking up in their very own flat to the electrifying warmth of Sirius pressing soft kisses against his throat. Lazy breakfast together as sunlight poured in through the window. It was a year now they’d been living here, since they finished school, and the world hadn’t caved in around him like Remus had always thought it surely must do if he allowed himself to be happy.

Still, though, he had principles to uphold. He batted away Sirius’ hand, which was reaching for the honey again. “Or, seeing as I _made_ breakfast, _you_ could do the washing up, and then –”

“You made breakfast? All of it?” Sirius demanded, feigning outrage and waving his fork in emphasis. “Who made the tea, I ask you?”

Remus laughed. “Sirius, you only make me tea in the mornings so I’ll be awake enough to make the rest of breakfast.”

Sirius cocked an eyebrow at him. “And yet, I never see you complaining at the time.”

It was true, for all Remus pretended to moan about Sirius’ laziness, Sirius actually made very good tea, and had done so every morning since they’d moved into their flat, often slipping out of bed before Remus was awake just so he could surprise him with a hot, perfect cup of tea the moment he woke up. And then, too, there was the fact that Sirius’ offerings of tea came so reliably accompanied by warm, deep kisses. Remus had vaguely begun to worry he might develop a Pavlovian response to the mere smell of black tea.

Pavlov and his dogs…Sirius as a dog, as Padfoot, eager for any adventure…Sirius simply as Sirius, smiling that heart-stopping smile across the table at Remus.

Remus laughed and gave in. “Right, fine, I’ll do the washing up if you –”

From outside the front door of their flat, the proximity warning charm chimed, three trilling notes that sent a spike of alarm through Remus’ gut, because it was a sound they almost never heard. Anyone from the Order knew to announce themselves before they approached.

Sirius looked at Remus. “Expecting someone?”

“No. You?”

Sirius shook his head, already leaping to his feet.

“Sirius! Wand!” Remus snapped. “For Merlin’s sake.”

Sheepishly, Sirius fetched up his wand from where he’d stashed it under his chair, then bounded out of the kitchen and through the living room. Remus grimaced, grabbed his own wand, and followed.

“No,” he heard Sirius say in the flat’s entryway, his voice so icily sharp that Remus, halfway across the living room, stopped dead at the sound. Then he dashed the rest of the way across the room, reaching Sirius’ side just as he slid the bolt home, the door closed once again against whoever had intruded on their peace. When Sirius turned to Remus his face was unreadable, but he was gripping his wand so tightly that his knuckles had gone white.

Remus skidded to a stop, sliding a little on the hardwood floor, and stared at him.

“Sirius. Who was it?”

“Oh, that? Nothing. Nobody.”

His voice was strangely devoid of…anything. Sirius, usually so buoyant it was impossible to keep him in one place for more than a moment, stood as white and still as if he’d seen a ghost.

“A _nobody_ who’s left you this terrified?” Remus asked cautiously, his wand likewise at the ready and his body coursing with adrenalin, thrumming with the readiness for battle. Membership in the Order of the Phoenix had that effect, creating an ability to go from relaxed to ready to fight in the space of an instant. With every nerve in his body, Remus was prepared to defend Sirius from whatever was on the other side of that door.

“I’m not terrified!” Sirius spat. He too, had transformed almost beyond recognition in the few moments since he’d left the sunny breakfast table. “I’m furious! How dare he come here, to _our home_ , how DARE he!”

From the other side of the door a voice, similar in pitch and just as angry, shouted, “I’ll stand here all day if I have to, Sirius! You have to hear what I need to tell you, whether you like it or not. I’m not giving you a choice.”

The voice…Remus knew that voice. He stared at Sirius in shock.

Sirius’ features twisted with rage, an uglier expression than Remus had ever seen on him. “Yeah,” he said, his voice so rough with scorn that Remus’ throat tightened in sympathetic pain. “That’s why it’s nobody. Nobody who matters to me, anyway.”

From outside the door, Regulus Black snarled, “Are you going to open the door, or am I going to wait out here until you get sick of being trapped inside?”

Sirius spun towards the door, pressing his palms flat against its surface, wand still clenched between his fingers. “GO AWAY!” he yelled through the wood. “You’re not coming in here. Never. Over my dead body!”

“But…he’s your brother,” Remus said, though he, too, was at a loss. Why was Regulus here, when he and Sirius hadn’t spoken in years? More ominously, how had he found out where they lived? It wasn’t a capital-S, Secret-Keeper-style secret, but members of the Order of the Phoenix were necessarily circumspect with their private addresses. Regulus must have been very determined to find Sirius if he’d managed to track down that information.

“He’s a Death Eater,” Sirius spat. “He’s not my brother.”

“I can hear you, you idiot!” the horrifyingly familiar voice on the other side of the door shouted. “And I’m not going away!”

“Maybe he –” Remus began.

But Sirius wasn’t listening. He screamed through the door, “GET OUT OF HERE, YOU BASTARD.” Then he flung himself around so his back was pressed against the door, arms braced to either side, as if that would help to keep Regulus out.

“Sirius –” Remus protested.

Sirius’ face was transformed with hatred. “I WILL HEX YOU IF YOU DON’T LEAVE US ALONE RIGHT NOW. I’LL _KILL_ YOU!”

“Sirius!” Remus shouted over him, horrified, grabbing at Sirius’ arms as if that would somehow still his anger. “You are not going to kill your brother, no matter what! Have you gone completely mad?”

Sirius struggled against Remus’ hands. From outside the door, his voice so chillingly familiar and clear even through the layer of wood, Regulus said, “I have to talk to you, Sirius. I don’t have any other option or believe me, I would have taken it. So do whatever you like to me, but I’m not going away.”

Sirius panted for breath, his eyes half-crazed and fixed on Remus’ face. “I’m not letting him in.”

“I didn’t say you had to,” Remus said, trying to sound calm enough for both of them even as his heart pounded frantically in his chest. He couldn’t tear his eyes from the pain in Sirius’ face. When was the last time he’d seen Sirius in such pain? “You don’t have to. But if he just wants to talk…”

“He’s a Death Eater. Merlin knows what he wants, but it’s not going to be anything good. It could be an ambush.”

Remus shrugged helplessly. Yes, it could be an ambush. There was never any way to know until you were already in the thick of it.

“I’m not letting him in this flat,” Sirius whispered. “What if he hurts you?”

Remus stared back at him, shocked. All this protective rage was…for Remus?

They both breathed, Sirius’ harsh inhalations falling into a rhythm with Remus’ no less panicked ones. They stared at each other and kept breathing, as if all the world’s dangers might undergo a Freezing Charm if they could just stay still enough.

Finally, Sirius’ taut muscles slackened almost imperceptibly under Remus’ grip.

“Regulus,” Remus called softly through the door, watching Sirius’ face with every word, not wanting to overstep his rights here, because Sirius’ family was Sirius’ battle to fight. “We’re not going to let you in. Sirius isn’t going to open the door while you’re standing out there, it’s not going to happen. But we could meet, maybe, at a neutral location…?”

He raised his eyebrows at Sirius, watching for agreement or refusal. They were standing very close, Remus’ body nearly flush with Sirius’, both Sirius’ wrists still captured in his hands.

Finally, minutely, Sirius nodded.

Outside the door, Regulus growled, “Where?”

Remus looked to Sirius. Sirius knew Regulus better than anyone. He would be able to pick a place, Remus hoped, that might minimise the danger of this admittedly foolhardy plan, agreeing to a rendezvous with a Death Eater.

Sirius breathed once, in, then out. “The crypt,” he said, his eyes never leaving Remus’ face. “Tonight. Come alone.”

The words hung like something corporeal in the tense, electric air. Then, on the other side of the door, Regulus snarled, “Fine.” Remus heard a huff of breath, then footsteps stalked away down the corridor.

Regulus was gone.

Sirius’ body slackened all at once, slumping back against the door, and Remus caught at his elbows, afraid he would fall. But Sirius stayed upright, breathing hard, still staring at Remus like he’d forgotten how to do anything else.

“The crypt?” Remus asked in a whisper, though whispering was no longer necessary. “What’s that?”

Sirius smirked painfully. “Oh, just where the old family bones go. Not that I have any plans to end up there.”

Remus tried to picture it, a clammy stone chamber beneath a parish church somewhere, no doubt heavily charmed with concealments against Muggle eyes. The coffins of all Sirius’ noble and bigoted ancestors in tidy rows. Remus shuddered. “And that’s where you want us to meet your brother?”

Sirius started back in surprise, his head knocking against the door. “Us? You’re not going anywhere near that evil bastard. _I’m_ meeting him tonight. You’re staying here.”

“No. Absolutely not.” Remus caught Sirius’ wrist again and gripped it, not hard, but firmly. “There is no way I’m letting you meet him alone, are you daft?”

Sirius opened his mouth to protest – and then he must have seen something in Remus’ face that changed his mind, and his protest died away. Remus wondered what he saw.

“Yeah, all right,” Sirius said, sounding defeated. “We’ll go together.”

Sirius tried so hard to pretend he didn’t have a brother anymore, to pretend he didn’t even care. And he managed it, most of the time, because James and Peter and Lily filled the role of family so well. But in those rare moments when the hurt slipped out, despite all the love Sirius’ friends could give him, it seared across his face like fire.

Remus slid his hand from Sirius’ wrist to his hand, caught it and brought it to his lips, and kissed the palm.

“It’s going to be okay,” he whispered, even though he had no way of knowing that. Nothing except his own determination to make it so.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Pale stone columns and vaults stretched away in both directions. The room was narrow but long, and the ceilings unexpectedly high. Pale light filtered in from somewhere, perhaps from the stones themselves. Remus gazed around, a little awed despite himself. The whole effect of the place was grand, far too grand to fit beneath the little church Remus had seen aboveground. He suspected tastefully executed Enlargement Charms.

The air was cool and quiet and smelled pleasantly of old rock, not musty as Remus had expected it to be. Their footsteps sounded softly on the worn stones.

Beside him, Sirius’ voice came out harshly sarcastic, and the walls returned a muffled echo of the sound. “Doesn’t it make you want to go ahead and bite it just for the honour of getting stashed here? Look up.”

“What?” Remus asked, confused by this abrupt shift.

Sirius stepped closer, his body a warm and welcome presence amidst all the cool stone, and gently caught Remus’ arm. He leaned in and nudged Remus’ chin with his own. “Go on, look up.”

Remus did so, and gasped. The entire Northern Hemisphere night sky soared above him, every detail of it, even the faintest star, picked out in delicate gold paint against a high, vaulted ceiling of Egyptian blue. It was astonishingly life-like. The stars seemed even to twinkle in the wan light of the crypt, as did the gossamer-thin lines that sketched out the shapes of constellations. Instinctively, Remus’ eye sought out familiar shapes, starting with the North Star and working outwards.

“There I am,” Sirius whispered, his breath warm in Remus’ ear, stretching one hand up to point at the brightest star in the constellation neatly labelled _Canis Major_. The dog star, in the dog constellation, beside the unmistakeable shape of Orion the hunter. “Forever faithfully trotting at Orion’s heels,” Sirius muttered, and Remus shivered. Orion: a random of collection of otherwise unrelated stars called after a Greek hero, and the name of Sirius’ estranged father. 

Remus knew Sirius’ name had been burned off his family tree. Sirius had told him so in a rare, maudlin moment of openness about his family. And that knowledge made Remus perversely glad to see that at least Sirius hadn’t been scrubbed away here, from the family’s constellation chart – even though that probably had nothing to do with Sirius himself. Probably the star that bore his name was allowed to remain only because the Sirius in the night sky really did exist, and even the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black wasn’t powerful enough to wish it away. Still, Remus felt fiercely glad to see Sirius’ painted star still shining.

“That’s the thing about being part of a constellation,” Sirius murmured, his voice a ghost of breath against Remus’ ear. “You try and you try to run, but no matter how far you go, those little lines are still binding you.”

A footstep sounded, far away at the end of the vault; both Remus and Sirius spun towards the sound, wands extended. In the dim light, they could see Regulus picking his way towards them between the rows of coffins.

Regulus looked terrible, Remus thought. He didn’t want to think it, didn’t want to feel anything about Regulus except a determination to get him away from Sirius again as soon as possible. But he couldn’t help seeing Regulus’ pallor and the dark shadows under his eyes. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days and he wore long dark robes, despite the mild summer weather. Long enough to hide the Dark Mark that surely adorned his left arm.

“Brother,” Regulus said, stopping a few feet away from them, his arms extended to his sides and his hands empty in the universal gesture of the unarmed. “I came alone like you said, but I see you’ve brought back-up.” 

Remus saw Sirius’ hand tighten even more firmly on his wand. “Regulus,” Sirius spat. “What do you want?” 

“I place myself at your mercy,” Regulus said, a sardonic snarl belying the formality of what Remus suspected must be ritual phrases. “I come unarmed and defenceless, in humility. Hear my words.”

“Yeah, all right,” Sirius said through clenched teeth. “We’re here. We’re listening.”

“I’m not going to do anything to you. You can lower your wands.”

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t believe you,” Sirius growled, “seeing as the last time we met you tried to curse me.”

“I _don’t have a wand_. I don’t know what you expect me to do without one,” Regulus snapped.

“Sirius,” Remus said softly. “It’s easy enough to check. Shall I?”

Sirius nodded tightly, gaze and wand still sharply focused on Regulus, so Remus pointed his own wand and murmured, “ _Magicum Revelio_.”

Spidery lines of light danced across Regulus’ body, but they didn’t collect in any one spot as they would have done if he had been carrying a magical object, and they faded away as soon as Remus lowered his arm.

“It’s true,” Remus said. “He’s not carrying a wand.”

“They broke it,” Regulus said, hands still spread wide, tightly harnessed fury in his voice. “They broke it when I – anyway, they broke it.”

“Fine,” Sirius said, but he didn’t lower his wand. “You sit over there. We stay here.” 

Regulus backed away and perched gingerly against the edge of the coffin Sirius had indicated. His dark eyes burned in his sallow face, even in the low light.

“Now talk,” Sirius said.

Regulus glared at him, but he spoke. “The Dark Lord – he’s done something awful. It’s horrible to talk about. It’s –” Regulus swallowed, then abruptly asked, “Do you know what a Horcrux is?”

Remus gave an involuntary gasp. He’d come across the term in the Restricted section of the library back at Hogwarts, doing advanced research with a special note of permission from that year’s Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. As soon as he’d realised what he was reading, Remus had shoved the book back onto the shelf, sickened. He felt sick now, too. “Voldemort’s made a Horcrux?”

Regulus winced at the name, but nodded. “Yeah. And I know where it is.”

Sirius was frowning angrily. “He’s made a what?”

Remus looked over at him. “It’s a…vessel, something to hold a piece of his soul. He’d have had to commit murder, which I suppose he does often enough anyway, to rip his soul. Then there’s a complicated and awful magical process to put that piece of the soul inside an object, somewhere apart from the body. It makes him immortal, basically, because even if you kill his body, his soul is still there.”

Regulus glanced at Remus with grudging respect on his face. “That’s right,” he said. “I don’t know how you know that, but it’s right.”

“Too much reading,” Remus mumbled, and Sirius barked out a laugh, half humoured and half horrified.

Eyes on Regulus, Sirius demanded, “So where’s this Horcrux? And why are you telling us about it? I would think you’d want old Voldy to live forever, since you adore him so much.”

Regulus twitched at Sirius’ disrespectful tone, and seemed to have to fight against an urge to dispute it. But instead he said, “He tried to kill Kreacher.”

The sentence hung in the air, and Remus racked his brains for when he’d heard Sirius use that name. One of the family’s house-elves, was that it? 

Regulus hugged his arms around himself as though he were very cold, although the crypt was no more than pleasantly cool, and the words began to tumble out. “He made this Horcrux, and he found a hiding place for it, and then he wanted to test out the hiding place to make sure it really worked, so he made me loan him Kreacher. He used Kreacher as his test and then he just left him to _die_. If I hadn’t ordered Kreacher to come back to me afterwards, he would have died. And I’m – I’m going to get the Horcrux and destroy it. And I need your help.”

Regulus stopped talking, and Sirius exhaled harshly into the sudden silence. He still hadn’t lowered his wand, which was aimed at his brother’s heart. “Why should I believe you?” Sirius demanded. “What’s to say you’re not spying for them right now, trying to trap me and Remus into something, or use us to lead you to the Order of the Phoenix?”

“Because I’m not a Death Eater anymore,” Regulus said, and reached over with his right hand to roll up his left sleeve. “I told my mates – I mean – the others about what happened, and I asked them didn’t they think it was wrong to hurt someone who was on our side, who was only trying to help us, and they…” With a last, flurried motion, he flung his sleeve the rest of the way up and thrust his left arm towards them.

Where Remus had expected to see a Dark Mark was instead livid flesh. A chunk of Regulus’ arm had been gouged out and partially, inexpertly healed with amateur charms, so that the wound was more or less closed, but the skin around it was misshapen and inflamed, still clotted in places with dark blood. Remus, accustomed though he was to wounds of every kind, nearly gagged at the unexpectedness of it.

“They cut it out,” Regulus said dispassionately. “They said questioning the Dark Lord’s ways was betrayal and I didn’t deserve to be one of his Death Eaters anymore.”

“I’m surprised they didn’t kill you,” Sirius replied. His voice had gone curiously flat.

Regulus sneered in his direction as he carelessly shoved his sleeve back down over the horrible wound. “You’d have liked that, wouldn’t you? Save you the trouble. Well, they tried to. And they broke my wand. But I got away before they could get me. And I’m going to destroy that Horcrux whether you help me or not, and I really don’t give a Hippogriph’s arse whether you believe me.”

Remus slid his gaze sideways at Sirius. It was Sirius’ choice. He could send Regulus away this moment, and Remus certainly wouldn’t rebuke him. It wasn’t his place to make decisions about Sirius’ life.

Very slowly, Sirius lowered his wand. For an endless moment he stared his brother down, and Remus, beside him, could hardly breathe.

“All right,” Sirius said at last. “I’m not saying I necessarily believe you, but you can show us the hiding place of this Horcrux and then we’ll see what to do about it. Stand up.”

His eyes locked the whole time on Sirius, Regulus stood up very slowly from the coffin, hands again spread in surrender.

“We’ll take you to the Order,” Sirius said. “You can tell them what you’ve told us, and they’ll decide what the best thing is to do.”

“No!” Regulus’ hands scrabbled frantically for the wand he didn’t have, and he pressed back against the coffin behind him. His eyes rolled in fear, like a cornered animal. “No, don’t make me go to them!”

“Regulus,” Remus said, startled. He stepped forward, then thought better of it when Regulus flailed away in a frenzy at his approach. “Nobody in the Order of the Phoenix is going to hurt you. If anything, they can offer you more protection than just the two of us would be able to do.”

“No, no, no,” Regulus moaned, cowering against the coffin. “Don’t make me, don’t make me. They’ll kill me.”

Remus turned to Sirius, who looked back at him, equally confused and looking suddenly out of his depth. It occurred to Remus very forcefully that Sirius knew how to be angry at his brother, knew how to react to Regulus’ rage, but he didn’t know how to deal with this fear and vulnerability.

“Okay,” Remus said gently, trying to make himself as physically unthreatening as possible. “Regulus, nobody’s going to hurt you. We won’t take you to the Order. It’s just us, Sirius and I, and we’ll help you. You can come back to our flat for the night, and we’ll figure it out tomorrow. All right?”

“To our flat?” Sirius hissed. “What, so he can kill us in our sleep?”

Keeping one eye on the panicked brother and one eye on the furious one, Remus gave a huff of frustration. “Look, can you think of a better option? He’s terrified of the Order, he obviously can’t go back to wherever he was living before, and he’s exhausted. He’s going to fall over where he stands if you don’t let him sleep _somewhere_.”

It was true, Regulus was swaying on his feet, clutching his arms around himself. The cool, disdainful young man was gone, replaced by a terrified child from the moment the Order of the Phoenix was mentioned.

Sirius ground his teeth. “Fine. But I’m locking him up in the guest room. He’s still a danger, no matter what change of heart he’s supposedly had.” 

“All right,” Remus said soothingly, no longer sure who he was trying to comfort. “We’ll do that. Let’s do that.”

Sirius stared at his brother with unfathomably dark eyes. “Come on then,” he said. “You’re coming home with us.”


	3. Chapter 3

“They’ve brainwashed him somehow,” Sirius said.

He was pacing back and forth across the living room carpet, his steps tight and tense, his gaze fixed somewhere far beyond the walls of their flat. Regulus was asleep in the next room, behind a door that was locked and charmed with every protection they’d been able to think of, which for two members of the Order of the Phoenix meant quite a lot of spells indeed.

Remus, meanwhile, was slumped on the sofa in exhaustion, and watching Sirius pace frantically was only making it worse.

“I never knew him to be like that,” Sirius continued, his voice fast and feverish. “I’d be the first to say he was a weak-willed little idiot, going along with whatever would get him a pat on the head from Mummy and Daddy, but he’s not a coward. Voldemort must have brainwashed him into thinking the Order were the absolute, greatest evil, and would torture him to death or something if we ever got hold of him. Makes sense, right? Portray your enemy as inhuman, so your foot soldiers will have no compunctions about raising a weapon and killing them. Generals have been doing it in wars all through history –”

“Sirius, would you stop it, _please_ ,” Remus said. His eyes burned with exhaustion and his arms and legs felt like he’d been hit with a Heaviness Hex. He’d lost track of the hour and knew only that it was very, very late, and that Sirius was going to drive himself to collapse if he didn’t quit moving.

Sirius stopped in his tracks in the middle of the room and glanced over at Remus, baffled. “What?”

“Can you come sit down here, please, and can we focus on what we’re going to do about your brother? I think the history lesson can probably wait.”

Sirius blinked at him, then finally paced over to the sofa with the even, heavy steps of a sleepwalker. He sank slowly down next to Remus, still blinking in bafflement, as if he were just now realising his body was exhausted to the point that he could barely hold himself up.

“Oh,” Sirius said, looking surprised, once he’d landed fully on the sofa.

“Yeah,” Remus agreed, shaking his head at him. “Come here.”

He tugged Sirius towards him until their bodies met, shoulders and hips in warm contact. Sirius dropped his head onto Remus’ shoulder and Remus reached up a hand to rub through Sirius’ shaggy hair in that way Sirius loved. Another dog-like trait, one that ought to have seemed bizarre in an adult human, but one which Remus, in his smitten state, couldn’t find anything but endearing.

“Why is he here?” Sirius asked into Remus’ shoulder, his voice suddenly sounding very small. “I swear, the world made sense to me until yesterday. I don’t understand why he’s here.”

Remus had no answers. He wished he could fathom anything at all about Sirius’ brother, but some days he could barely even fathom Sirius. “For now I guess all we can do is believe him – cautiously believe him – and go on like that. I mean – it’s up to you. If he really does need your help, would you give it?” 

Sirius shrugged against Remus’ side. “I don’t understand what he wants,” he mumbled. There was a plaintive note in his voice that Remus hadn’t heard in years, and it made him tremble, though he tried not to let Sirius feel it. He wasn’t used to a Sirius who sounded so lost. Immature and childish, yes, sometimes maddeningly so, but always brash, always passionate, always with at least twice as much confidence in himself as any normal person. Between the two of them, Remus wasn’t used to being the one who led the charge.

So he started with smaller, practical matters. “If he’s going to be staying with us for a bit, then,” Remus began, not sure exactly how to put this, “would you like me to pretend, er… I could sleep in a different room, while he’s here. Or something like that.”

Sirius jerked upright, wakeful again. “What are you saying?”

“I just…I don’t know how much he’s picked up already, but I don’t want to cause problems for you. I can pretend to be your friend you share a flat with. I don’t mind.”

“I would mind,” Sirius growled, swivelling to fix all the intensity of his grey-eyed gaze on Remus. “I’m not ashamed of you. Why would you think I’m ashamed of you?”

“I don’t!” Remus protested. “I just thought – I don’t know where pure-bloods stand, on – on things like this. If it would mean a lot of rude comments and ignorant bile, I’d just as soon save you that.”

Sirius laughed harshly. “Oh, pure-bloods don’t care about that. As long as you make a nice loveless marriage and produce suitable heirs, nobody cares who you bugger on the side.”

Remus blinked. “Really?”

“Yeah, really. The House of Black can be surprisingly open-minded about the least useful things. My family wanted heirs from me, and unstinting loyalty, but not much else. Nothing like _happiness_ or anything.”

His voice was so bitter, Remus instinctively pulled him closer against his side. 

“I want you to be happy, Padfoot, and nothing else,” he whispered into Sirius’ hair. “You know that, right?”

For the first time in that long, tense day, the first time since their impossibly long-ago sunny breakfast together in the kitchen, Remus heard a smile in Sirius’ voice. “Yeah, you nutter. Of course I know that. Same to you, you know.” Then his voice tightened and he added, “And if Regulus being here is going to make you doubt yourself, I’ll wake him up and throw him out on his ear right now. Just say the word.”

“No!” Remus said, horrified. “Where would he go? He’s got no one to look after him but us.”

“That’s true,” Sirius said, sounding alarmed at the thought. “That’s true, isn’t it? Oh, Merlin, why is he _here_!” he said again, and his body tensed as if he were about to leap up and start pacing again.

“Don’t think about it,” Remus pleaded. “Come on, there’s nothing we can do about him until tomorrow, anyway, so why don’t you try not to think anymore for tonight.”

He carded his hand again through Sirius’ hair and Sirius let out a heavy sigh, then pressed his nose, surprisingly cold, into the side of Remus’ throat. Remus yelped. Sirius chuckled, low and wicked, and did it again.

“I think it might help me calm down if I had someone to distract me from my thoughts,” Sirius murmured into Remus’ throat, his voice a low thrum.

Remus’ whole body shivered. “Yeah?” he managed. “What kind of distraction did you have in mind?”

Sirius Black, capable of swinging from frantic anguish to bleak despair to insatiable horniness in less time than it took other people to cast a Cheering Charm. After all this time, he still managed to catch Remus by surprise.

Sirius chuckled, and nipped at Remus’ throat.

“No biting,” Remus protested. He knew he was a low risk any time other than the full moon, but a low risk was still more than he was willing to chance. He’d told Sirius over and over not to bite him even in play, never to do anything that could possibly break either of their skin or draw blood, but Sirius never seemed to care when it was a matter of his own safety.

“Distract me with something better, then,” Sirius challenged, so Remus caught him by the shoulders and pressed him against the cushions that lined the back of the sofa, teasing him with the slide of his body against Sirius’, breathing kisses against his face and neck and then pulling away until Sirius growled and flipped them, pinning Remus down on the sofa, and neither of them thought about anything else for a while.

Later, though, once they’d finally made it to their bed and Sirius was drifting off to sleep with his face mashed against Remus’ shoulder, snuffling in that bizarre yet somehow endearing way of his, Remus murmured, “You’re not going to put yourself in danger for his sake, Padfoot, are you? Can you promise me you’re not going to take risks for his sake?”

In the quiet dark Sirius only shrugged against Remus’ shoulder, and gave no answer. Remus thought of how stricken Sirius had been by his brother’s sudden vulnerability. For all Sirius professed to detest his brother, if Regulus needed him, Remus doubted Sirius would be able to stop himself from being there. But how far would Sirius go for Regulus and his dangerous mission? 

Remus slept uneasily.


	4. Chapter 4

Sketches and schematics covered the living room floor to the point that Remus couldn’t cross the room without shifting or scrunching something that wasn’t meant to be shifted or scrunched. So he perched on the edge of the sofa and watched instead. Morning sunlight streamed in the window, and Sirius and Regulus were sitting on the floor in the middle of the chaos, glaring at each other.

“So you know there’s a cave, but you know nothing about how to get into it, and you haven’t even been there yourself? What kind of reconnaissance is that?” Sirius demanded, staring at Regulus over a swath of parchment spread across the floor, on which Sirius was attempting to create yet another sketch from Regulus’ second-hand descriptions.

Regulus glared back, and snatched the quill away from Sirius. “I don’t know ‘nothing’. I know exactly how to get into it, because Kreacher described it to me. What, you don’t trust Kreacher?”

“About as far as I could throw him,” Sirius muttered, yanking the quill back.

“Look, just because he didn’t show a respectful attitude of servitude towards _you_ – for good reason, I might add –”

“Do you even hear yourself? You’re all up in arms because Voldemort was unkind to your house-elf, but still the thing that matters to you most is whether the house-elf is subservient enough?”

“Maybe you’ve forgotten after all these years of living in unrefined poverty, but the fact is that house-elves choose to serve wizards, because –”

“Oh, don’t tell me you still believe all that crap!”

“Just because _you_ –”

“BOYS,” Remus interrupted, and both heads of dark hair swivelled in his direction. “Do you think maybe we could come up with a plan sometime today, and leave the political argument for later?”

“He wants to burst in there completely unprepared!” Sirius protested.

Despite the gravity of the situation, Remus had to bite his lip against a smile at the thought of Sirius Black, master of the half-baked plan, complaining that someone else was too impetuous.

“And YOU aren’t listening!” Regulus bellowed back. “I’ve told you exactly how it’s got to go. There’s a cave, with a blood sacrifice at the entrance to open it, then a lake. There’s a boat that goes across it to an island, where there’s this basin with a potion that’s got to be got rid of before you can get to the thing itself. Then you take the Horcrux, which is disguised as a locket at the bottom of the basin, and you get out, take it away and destroy it.”

“Vague,” Sirius snapped. “Dangerously vague. What obstacles are in place to stop anyone getting in and out? What guards the lake, what guards the island?”

Regulus snatched the quill back from his brother yet again, and started scribbling notes at the edge of the parchment. “There are Inferi in the water, loads of Inferi, but they don’t come out unless you disturb them, and anyway all you have to do to stop them is Conjure fire. I assume even you are capable of a simple fire-Conjuring spell?”

Sirius glowered, but didn’t deign to answer that jibe. “And the potion?” he demanded. “How do we get rid of that? I’m guessing it’s not as easy as just tipping it over and pouring it out. Does it curse the person who touches it or something?”

Regulus’ eyes shifted to the side and he busied himself with the parchment he was writing on. “No, it doesn’t curse them. And I’ll deal with it when we get there, okay? Don’t worry about that part. You just have to make sure to get the Horcrux and get it out of the cave.”

Sirius glared at him suspiciously, but dropped the matter for the moment. Remus wondered what he was thinking. What both of them were thinking, really. There were so many half-told plans and hidden objectives in this room, and he didn’t like it. He didn’t like the way neither of the brothers seemed willing to admit any kind of whole truth to the other.

“Fine,” Sirius said finally, slapping his hand down on the parchment impatiently. “We’ll go tonight, and we’ll _hope_ your information is as good as you seem to think it is. And you stay within my sight the whole time, do you hear me? It’s the two of us all the time, or nothing.” 

“The three of us,” Remus interjected from the sofa, and again both of them looked up like they’d forgotten he was there.

“Remus –” Sirius objected. 

Remus fixed him with a glare of his own. “Seriously, are we going to have this argument again? You’re not going there alone. It’s all three of us or nothing.”

Their gaze caught and held for a long moment.

Then Sirius shoved himself up from the floor in a sudden rage, kicking the parchment away from him. “Whatever, fine, you all want to get yourselves killed? See if I care. See if I fucking care.”

He stormed across the room to the bedroom and slammed the door behind him so hard that a pair of forgotten wineglasses, abandoned atop the shelves where they kept their record collection, rattled and clinked against each other. 

And Remus was left alone in the uncomfortable silence with Regulus.

“Er,” Remus said, unhelpfully, and Regulus looked similarly alarmed. What did one say, anyway, to one’s lover’s estranged and formerly evil or quite possibly still evil brother? Especially when one was a half-Muggle secret werewolf offering shelter to a known pure-blood supremacist?

Remus cast his mind back for any conversation he’d had with Regulus, ever, maybe back at school before things had got quite so awful between Sirius and his family, but he came up blank. Even when Remus was just Sirius’ friend and Regulus was just Sirius’ irritating little brother, Remus was pretty sure they’d never so much as exchanged two words. What would they ever have had to talk to one another about, aside from Sirius?

Right, of course. They had Sirius in common.

“It’s good you came to him,” Remus said quietly. Regulus, who’d been casting his eyes around the room like he was hoping to find an excuse to simply pretend Remus wasn’t there, looked up in surprise. “This is too dangerous to do alone. It’s good that you came to ask Sirius to help you.”

“I almost didn’t come here,” Regulus admitted, still looking shifty-eyed and confused about how to hold a conversation with this unknown quantity that was his brother’s boyfriend. “I thought about asking Kreacher to go back with me, since he knows the way, but I couldn’t ask Kreacher to –” He broke off. “Anyway, it’s too dangerous. It’s not right to order an elf to do something like that. It should be a person, who can make their own decision.”

Remus blinked. Signs of incipient house-elf liberation sentiment? Remus knew better than to mention that to Sirius, though – he’d just launch into another tirade, and now really wasn’t the time.

“Are you…” Regulus asked hesitantly. His normally pale face was going red. “Are you and he…”

“Yeah,” Remus said quickly, hoping to save them both embarrassment. He really, really hoped Regulus wasn’t about to ask for details.

Instead, to his surprise, Regulus burst out, “I knew it! I always thought so, at school. My mates…” He was blushing in earnest now, then went a sudden, ugly, chalky white, maybe as he remembered what those same “mates” had recently done to him. Remus saw his left arm twitch. “Anyway, they said stuff, at school, about Sirius. I used to defend him, tell the blokes they were being idiots, but really, I always thought so, too.”

Remus had nothing to say to that. Sirius’ sexuality was his own to define. And Sirius’ sexuality had always been quite all encompassing. Not that Regulus needed to know quite that much detail.

“Anyway, it’s good,” Regulus muttered, staring very hard at the scrap of parchment nearest to him, his face again unmistakeably red.

“It’s – what’s good?” Remus asked, baffled. He was starting to wonder if it was a family trait, these bizarre, extreme shifts between emotions.

“It’s good he’s got you,” Regulus mumbled almost inaudibly, his cheeks flaming. “He was always so unhappy, yeah? And now he seems happy.”

Remus opened his mouth, then closed it again. He wondered where in all the shouting of the last day Regulus had managed to pick up the impression that Sirius was happy.

But then – it was true, wasn’t it? Even at his angriest, Sirius had some kind of balance about him these days he hadn’t possessed a few years ago, when he’d first run away from his family. Or when he’d played the most awful prank of all, the one that had nearly got Severus Snape killed and Remus expelled. Remus still felt anger shoot through him when his mind grazed over that memory. Sirius had been so cruel, so thoughtless, so _selfish_. A boy had almost died, all for the sake of Sirius’ petty desire to gain the upper hand in a schoolboy rivalry. And Remus – well, Remus’ life would have been over from that moment onwards, if James hadn’t intervened.

Sirius had apologised, abjectly, over and over, and Remus had accepted those words, because he knew Sirius meant them. But his stomach still curdled with terror when he thought about that night. 

Yes, Sirius was a much more stable person these days than he had been then.

But it never would have occurred to Remus to attribute that change in Sirius to his own influence. He thought so often about how much Sirius gave him, Sirius who was so vibrant and wonderfully alive, and he wondered what he, poor and damaged and dangerous as he was, could possibly give in return.

Across the room, the door to the bedroom squeaked open, and Sirius stood framed in it. He was so beautiful, even when looking as abashed as he did now.

“Sorry for shouting,” Sirius said, his eyes finding Remus across the room. “Of course you should come with us.” His body hunched unhappily, like he couldn’t stand the thought of Remus going into danger for his sake. Remus could see him struggling, could see how much he hated this plan, even as he gave in and agreed to it because it was what Remus had asked of him.

Remus stood up. He cast a quick glance at Regulus, still sitting on the floor amidst all the scattered parchment and watching both of them. Then he decided he didn’t care, and crossed the room and kissed Sirius anyway.

 


	5. Chapter 5

Remus gasped as sharp, cold air hit his lungs and a salty wind scoured his cheeks.

Sirius had Apparated all three of them here on Regulus’ precise instructions, since Regulus himself didn’t have a wand. But the moment they arrived, Sirius yanked his arm away from Regulus, like he couldn’t stand to stay in contact with him another moment. His other arm, still in Remus’ grasp, was tense.

It was night, and the moon was barely a crescent. Remus was glad it wasn’t yet full enough to weaken him. The last thing Sirius needed in all this was a partner not strong enough to be of any help. 

“ _Lumos_ ,” Sirius murmured, and a warm glow illuminated the rock where they stood, on a dark boulder half-submerged in the sea at the base of a high, black cliff that loomed forbiddingly above them. Around them, waves surged and smashed against the rock. Voldemort couldn’t have chosen a more dramatic location to hide a piece of his soul.

“Where’s the cave, then?” Sirius demanded, and if everything hadn’t been so tense, Remus might have teased him for his impatience.

On Sirius’ other side, Regulus flung out a hand towards the cliff face. “There. Don’t you see the crack in the rock?”

It took a moment for Remus’ eyes to adjust, but there was indeed a jagged fissure at the base of the cliff, where black water surged in and out in time with the motion of the waves.

“Do a warming charm,” Regulus instructed. “We have to swim there through the water.”

In the glow of Sirius’ wand, Remus could see Sirius’ face taking on an expression that said he was about to tell Regulus exactly where he could stuff his idea that he was allowed to give either of them orders. Hurriedly, before the two of them could start arguing again, Remus cast a warming charm on all three of them.

“That’ll do well enough for a little while,” he said. “Come on.” Remus stowed his wand safely inside his cloak, then took a deep preparatory breath. It didn’t help at all. He still shouted in shock as he slid off the side of the rock and his body hit the cold water. Even with the protection of a warming charm, it took his breath away.

There were two splashes behind him, then Remus heard Sirius’ harsh breathing near his ear. “Merlin’s bloody balls, it’s cold!” Sirius yelled, and Remus laughed and spluttered out saltwater.

Regulus swam up alongside them with powerful strokes, so Remus let him pull ahead and take the lead. When they reached the crack in the face of the cliff, they could see it opened into a tunnel. Remus and Sirius followed Regulus in, swimming in silence, gasping at the cold. It was perfectly dark now, and the waves slapped and echoed eerily against the tunnel walls.

“ _Lumos_ ,” Sirius muttered again, and Remus could hear the chattering of his teeth. The light of the wand Sirius held in his teeth as he swam illuminated the sleek, dark rock walls around them as they pushed on, following the splashing sounds of Regulus ahead of them.

Finally, Remus heard Regulus climb out of the water, and they reached a place where rough steps led up into a cave. Remus clambered up the steps, with Sirius behind him, until they all stood shivering and dripping on the wet stone floor. Remus cast a drying charm on all three of them before anyone could argue about it.

“It’s got to be around here,” Regulus muttered. “Straight ahead, Kreacher said.” He strode up to the wall of the cave, and before either of them could stop him, pulled a small dagger from his cloak with his left hand and sliced into the flesh of his own right forearm.

Sirius shouted, Remus darted forward, but Regulus just rolled his eyes at them and shook his bleeding arm so the blood sprayed across the wall. The silver outline of a door blazed into being in the rock, then all the mass within the outline disappeared. They had gained entrance.

“You bloody idiot, give me that,” Sirius snapped, grabbing the knife from Regulus’ hand and tucking it inside his own robes. “What are you trying to do, kill yourself?”

“It’s a minor blood sacrifice,” Regulus snapped in return. “Believe me, I’ve had a lot worse.”

“Episkey,” Sirius grumbled, waving his wand over Regulus’ arm. The skin healed over instantly.

Ignoring their bickering, Remus illuminated his own wand and stepped past them, through the archway that had formed in the rock.

What he saw was an enormous, black subterranean lake. Its far shore was lost in the darkness, but there was a greenish glow emanating from its middle. That, undoubtedly, was their destination.

“There’s a hidden boat somewhere along the side,” Regulus said. Remus hadn’t heard him approach from behind. “We have to walk along the edge until we find it. Kreacher said we’d feel it when we got to it. I’ll go first.” He set off along the narrow rim of rock between the water and the cavern wall. In the dimness beside Remus, Sirius made an annoyed noise, but had no choice but to follow.

They walked for a long time, Regulus then Sirius then Remus, along the never-ending curve of the lake’s dark shore. The green glow in its middle never got closer or further away. They were simply tracing a slow circle around it.

In the small light his lit wand cast in this great expanse of darkness, Remus watched the tense curve of Sirius’ back ahead of him. He knew Sirius didn’t trust Regulus. Regulus could be leading them into a trap. And yet, somehow, Remus didn’t think he was. The fear he saw in Regulus was real. The conflicted emotions jostling for prominence in his voice when he talked about his “Dark Lord” and his house-elf, those were real.

But at the same time, Remus felt sure Regulus hadn’t told them everything about his plan. It all went very vague after they got to the island in the middle of the lake. Regulus hadn’t been clear at all about how they were supposed to get at the Horcrux itself, let alone take it away with them. Voldemort must have unbreakable precautions in place, or precautions Voldemort considered to be unbreakable, to prevent his enemies from finding his treasure and walking away with it. Regulus surely knew what magic protected the Horcrux, but he was being maddeningly vague on the details.

“Here!” Regulus called out from ahead of them. “Got it.”

Sirius stopped a couple paces short of where Regulus appeared to be pulling at an invisible rope. Remus came up next to Sirius, rested a hand against his back, and was glad when Sirius leaned into it, just a little, accepting comfort rather than shrugging it away.

“One of you needs to use your wand to make it reveal itself,” Regulus said. Sirius, snorting at him in irritation, stepped forward and performed a Revelio Charm. A heavy, greenish metal chain appeared in Regulus’ hands, stretching away into the depths of the lake. “Yeah, that’s it,” Regulus said softly. He sounded nervous, but he braced his feet and began to haul on the chain.

Sirius leaned in to help, and Remus did too. The clanking of the chain piling itself in coils on the stone floor beside them filled the air, bouncing ominously off the cave walls that arched away above them and out of view. Their breath, too, sounded loud in the damp air.

Then a little boat, glowing a ghostly green, rose up out of the water, barely making a splash as it broke the surface and bobbed towards the shore where they stood. It nudged the edge of the bank, like an animal asking to play. A sinister, phosphorescent animal.

All three of them stood and stared at it.

Finally, Remus spoke what they all must be thinking. “We can’t possibly all fit in that.”

“No,” Regulus said, staring at the boat like he couldn’t tear his eyes away. “It’s designed, in terms of magic, to hold only one. Kreacher got across too, but then, Kreacher isn’t a wizard.”

Sirius rounded on his brother. “So, now what? One person goes alone to fight whatever magic Voldemort’s got protecting that thing while everybody else waits? Yeah _that_ sounds like a great plan, Regulus, well done!”

“I think,” Regulus said softly, still not looking at them, “that I don’t count. I don’t have my wand, because I lost it in a fight. I let myself be disarmed, which is a disgrace to the Dark Lord. So I don’t think I would count to him at all.”

Silently, Remus took in the meaning of what he’d just said. Regulus could cross to the island in the middle of the lake, together with one other wizard. No more.

Sirius turned to Remus, and with horrible, inevitable foreboding, Remus knew what he would say. Sirius’s eyes were wide and dark. “It’s got to be me, Remus. You understand, right? I’ve got to be the one go with him.”

Remus swallowed hard. The _last_ thing he wanted, the last thing he ever wanted, was to send Sirius into danger, not without Remus there to watch his back. Sirius and Regulus, alone together on an island in a dark lake full of unseen horrors put in place by Voldemort himself to keep intruders out – that was worse than anything Remus could have dreamed in the nightmares that sometimes shook him awake at night, even when Sirius was lying safely by his side.

But he knew Sirius was right. This was Sirius’ brother. Remus couldn’t tell him not to go.

“I’ll wait here,” Remus said, keeping any hint of a wobble firmly out of his voice. “But be _careful_ , all right?”

Sirius stared at him, his features illuminated from below by the light of his wand, rendering his nose strangely long and his eyes dark. “Yeah,” he said, his voice sounding husky. “Of course I will. Remus, I –” He broke off again.

“It’s fine,” Remus said. Whatever Sirius wanted to say, whatever he was struggling to express in front of Regulus, Remus already knew. He found Sirius’ hand and squeezed it once. “Go on.”

Sirius squeezed back, then released Remus’ hand. “Right,” he said to his brother, pointing at the boat with his wand. “You first.”


	6. Chapter 6

The little boat slipped away from the bank without a sound. Stiffly facing each other within its cramped confines, framed in its ghostly green glow, Sirius and Regulus looked eerily alike. Two heads of dark hair, though Regulus’ was cropped shorter, two striking silhouettes with sharply defined features and high cheekbones. Remus was so used to thinking of Sirius and his brother as opposites that it was startling to see them side by side, alike after all.

Neither of the brothers spoke, as the boat made its strange crossing to the green-glowing island, cutting through the dark water without a splash. The island was closer to the shore here than it had been from the cave’s entrance, though it was still little more than a faraway green glow. The air was still and smelled of cold, damp things.

For many minutes Remus waited, tense, straining to hear any sign of their progress as the boat slipped smoothly away into the endless darkness and beyond Remus’ sight.

Finally, he heard the scuffle of their steps as Sirius and Regulus disembarked onto the rock island, the sound carrying clearly across the unnaturally still water. Their shapes were no more than a slight disturbance of the misty phosphorescent glow at the centre of the lake, but snippets of terse conversation drifted across the water to Remus – “…that it?” “…have to drink the potion, because…”

Then Sirius’ voice, unmistakeably loud and angry. “Are you fucking insane? I’m not letting you drink that.”

Remus’ body tensed.

Scrabbling sounds reverberated across the lake, as if Sirius were attempting to attack the basin bodily or throw spells at it, trying to charm away the potion it held. Over the noise, Regulus’ voice said, increasingly irritated, “I _told_ you, the only way is to drink it. Why do you always fucking think you know better?”

There was a pause, with only the sound of Sirius breathing hard.

Then Regulus said, a little more quietly, “Look, I brought a goblet. It’s not a big deal. I came here prepared to drink it, and I’ll drink it.”

“No.” All Sirius’ passion was in that word, all the fire and fervour Remus adored in him. “No, Regulus. Give it to me.”

The silence then felt endless. Remus couldn’t see to know what they were doing, what their expressions might tell him if he could see. He could only wait, arms clenched tight.

Regulus’ voice came at last, strange and subdued, like nothing Remus had ever heard from him. “Here,” he said. “Take it.”

Then stillness returned. Remus fancied he heard the soft splash of a goblet dipping into a basin of liquid, though surely such a sound wouldn’t carry across the vast expanse of the lake.

When Regulus spoke again, his voice was high and hesitant. “Kreacher said – the potion makes you –”

Sirius cut harshly across him. “Don’t warn me. I’d rather not know.”

Silence. Sirius must be drinking the potion, whatever it might be. Remus’ stomach clenched in sympathetic pain.

Out of the silence, Regulus’ voice wafted across the water again, hushed and horrified. “That’s…that’s good, Sirius. See? The potion’s getting lower in the basin. Just…just keep going.”

Remus swore he could hear every ragged breath Sirius drew, imagined he heard Sirius’ gulps and harrowing swallows.

Then Sirius gasped, “Regulus.”

Regulus answered immediately. “I’m here. What do you need?”

“Regulus,” Sirius repeated. Even at this distance, Remus could hear so much pain in his voice. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

Regulus’ voice quavered. “There’s nothing to be sorry about.”

“It’s all my fault. I should never have left. I’m so sorry.”

Now the wobble in Regulus’ voice was unmistakeable. “Don’t apologise, you idiot. You don’t have to apologise for anything. Just…just drink, get it over faster. Here.”

A goblet full of the liquid evidently changed hands; Sirius drank and moaned.

“That’s good,” Regulus whispered, his voice agonised. “Keep going, that’s great.”

“Make it stop!” Sirius screamed. Something clattered and rolled, before coming to an abrupt stop – the goblet must have fallen, and Regulus had scooped it up. Remus was shivering now with the pain of hearing Sirius suffer, of hearing his wails roll out across the dark expanse of water. “Oh, please, make it stop,” Sirius groaned. “I’ll do anything.”

Regulus’ voice was taut with horror as he said, “Here, drink this, do it quickly and it’ll be over soon. Look, that’s more than half of it already, isn’t that good?”

Sirius drank, and moaned, “Forgive me.” Remus had never heard such wretchedness in his voice.

“There’s nothing to forgive,” Regulus answered brokenly. “Sirius –” 

“I left you there with them.” Sirius’ voice seemed to be growing fainter. “All those – all those constellations, all those fucking…lines and stars, stupid fucking pictures, tying people together, and you try to get away, and you can’t, and I thought I’d got away, but how could I do that, how could I leave you –”

“Don’t talk,” Regulus pleaded. “Why don’t you – don’t talk, don’t say anything, just drink this, look, you’re almost done –”

Sirius drank, and screamed raggedly. He panted for breath. “Just kill me,” he rasped, his voice horrible. “I don’t deserve to live. Why didn’t they kill me, then, when I left, and have done with it?”

Regulus’ voice trembled. “You can – you can stop, you know. I’ll do the rest. Let me take the –”

“No!” Sirius shouted in his hoarse voice. “Give it to me. Let me drink. Let it kill me.” Silence, then more horrendous coughing; Sirius had drunk the next goblet. 

“Here,” Regulus whispered, his voice little more than a flutter under Sirius’ heart-rending moans, and Sirius must have drunk yet again.

“Remus,” Sirius said suddenly, very clearly, and all the hairs on Remus’ arms stood up.

He almost called out to Sirius, but made himself stay silent, clenching his arms around himself. What could he possibly say that wouldn’t make this ordeal worse? What if he caused Sirius further danger, what if Sirius plunged into the icy lake, pursuing the sound of his voice? Remus had never felt so helpless, not even as a werewolf, with the moon tearing his body apart. At least when he transformed, Remus was the only one who had to suffer.

“Remus,” Sirius said again, in a whisper. “I was so selfish. That night –”

Remus knew at once what night Sirius meant. His whole body shuddered, and it was as if he were in the Shrieking Shack again, a wolf out of his mind, with the irresistible scent of an innocent human approaching along the passageway under the willow.

Sirius had done that. He’d sent the wolf an unwitting victim with no more thought than he’d given to any of their other schoolboy pranks.

Sirius had been so breathtakingly cruel, not caring about anything but his own whims. 

“Oh, god, oh, god,” Sirius rasped, from far across the water. “I almost – I could have – Remus, I almost destroyed _everything_.”

It was all tangled up in Remus’ body, somehow, Sirius’ moans of pain across the lake were his own howls of frustration that night in the Shrieking Shack, as the human in the passageway approached so close the wolf could almost taste him – and then was yanked away again beyond the wolf’s reach.

Sirius was moaning on the island with a goblet full of poison, and at the same time the sound was James’ voice, soberly relating at Remus’ hospital wing bedside what Sirius had done in the night.

It was the churning in Remus’ gut as he decided he was never speaking to Sirius again.

And it was Sirius’ miserable sidelong glances, his whispered promises of penance through all those long months, until finally they came first to an uneasy detente, then a fragile peace, then at last began to build up a new and better friendship from the ashes of the old. 

And somehow that long and difficult road had brought them here, to the point where Sirius was to Remus like breathing, and the sounds of Sirius’ agony far across the dark lake felt like Remus’ own heart was being ripped to shreds. He could not survive without Sirius. He didn’t know how he’d ever thought he could.

“Remus!” Sirius gasped, across the water. “I don’t deserve it – forgive me – I don’t deserve you.”

The pull of Sirius’ pain had brought Remus to the very edge of the lake, his toes almost touching the line of the black water. Hugging his own chest, gasping with vicarious agony, Remus struggled to get in one good, full breath, then breathed it back out and forcefully let it all go, the last lingering resentment at what Sirius had done. It was over now. It was the past. Remus whispered as quietly as he could into the clammy, still air, “I forgive you, Padfoot.”

A scraping, clanging sound; Sirius must have plunged the goblet into the basin himself, and scooped up more of the vile potion.

“You’re almost there,” Regulus’ voice wavered, as the clanging ended and Sirius drank.

Sirius coughed and groaned, then cried out, sudden and sharp, “Oh, fuck – oh, fuck, it’s burning, make it stop –”

“Here, drink this,” Regulus gasped, and Remus could hear in his voice that Regulus was crying. Then he reached numb hands up to feel his own face, and knew he was crying, too.

Sirius screamed.

“You’ve almost got it!” Regulus shouted over him. “Look, you’ve almost done it, I can almost reach the Horcrux, one more will do it –”

Then came the horrible, heavy thud of dead weight hitting the ground. 

“Sirius!” Regulus screamed. “Get up, wake up, Sirius!”

Remus could hear Regulus slapping Sirius’ face. Remus paced frantically along the rocky bank. There had to be some way he could get to Sirius, he would plunge right into the dark water and swim to the island if he had to. He would do it, no matter the consequences, no matter what lurked in that water, if Sirius didn’t answer, very soon. If Sirius – if anything happened to Sirius –

There was a rattling cough, then another scream. “OH, GOD, I WANT TO DIE!” Sirius raged in his torn-apart voice. “I don’t deserve to live, I’ve failed everyone I cared about, please, please, let me die.” And then again he screamed, “Remus!”

Tears of impotent anguish rolled down Remus’ face. He couldn’t stay here on the wrong side of the water when Sirius called out to him like that.

Regulus, too, was sobbing. “Just one more, Sirius, please, then I can get you out of here. Please, please, drink one more time.”

There was a rustling as Regulus stood, then a scraping as the goblet hit the bottom of the basin, each unseen action painfully clear by its sound. Another rustle as Regulus knelt again, perhaps propping up his brother’s head so he could drink.

“Please,” Regulus whispered brokenly. “It’s the last thing I’ll ever ask of you, Sirius, I promise.”

Then there was an unnatural stillness.

Regulus’ voice came again, terrified and exhausted and awed. “You did it. Sirius, look. The locket.”

Sirius rasped, almost inaudible, “Water. I’m dying – I need – please, water.”

“There isn’t any –”

“Please –” Sirius’ voice had almost completely faded.

“Don’t worry, don’t worry, I’ll – oh, God, Sirius, don’t die –”

There was a faint splash and then all at once the lake was roiling with pale, flailing forms, the still, black lake no longer still or black, every inch of it now a turmoil of ghostly limbs.

Inferi. 

“ _Incendio_!” Remus screamed, his wand in his hand without even having to think. Red flame burst from the tip of his wand, a great ring of it, driving back the Inferi nearest to him. “ _Incendio_!” Remus cried again, putting more force into it than any spell he’d ever cast, driving his fire as far out over the water as he could, sending it towards Sirius and Regulus in the middle of the hostile lake as the only protection he could offer. 

For interminable minutes Remus fought, pouring every ounce of his strength into his Fire Spell, willing it to reach Sirius and Regulus and keep them safe. He was so absorbed in the work that it took a moment before he registered another sound over the crackle of the flames – the clinking of the chain that drew the boat, coiling itself into a growing pile of surplus length at Remus’ feet. The boat was returning from the island.

The steady green glow of the little boat met the wild, dancing red of Remus’ fire, sparks shooting into the air at the point of contact. Inside the boat, Regulus was screaming a counter-charm to pass safely through the ring of fire. Then the boat nudged the bank and Regulus leapt out, something small and golden clutched in his right hand. Remus’ body moved of its own volition, springing forward to help Regulus pull Sirius’ inert form from the bottom of the boat, onto the cold rock of the shore.

Sudden and without a sound, the boat slid away under the surface of the water. The Inferi were gone. The lake was as smooth as glass once more.

The sudden silence screamed in Remus’ ears, adrenalin burning under his skin, his body quivering in a fever pitch of terror.

He dropped to his knees on the hard rock and threw himself on Sirius’ body, his hands feeling frantically for a pulse, a breath. Sirius’ skin was icy cold. At Remus’ side, Regulus was crying in fear, gasping out wracking sobs that seemed to fill the whole vastness of the cave.

There – the pulse at Sirius’ neck fluttered under Remus’ fingers. Remus gasped in relief and pressed his body against Sirius’ chest, desperate to warm him with his own body heat. “We have to get him to St Mungo’s,” he heard himself say.

Regulus was still sobbing hysterically, clutching blindly for Sirius’ hand. “Is he dead?”

Remus’ arms around Sirius clenched tighter. “What? No! He’s alive, but he needs a Healer. This is more than I know how to make right. I have to get him to St Mungo’s.”

“You can’t take him there! What will we tell them when they ask questions? Nobody else can know about this, it’s too dangerous!”

Remus kept one hand resting protectively over the faint but reassuring beat of Sirius’ heart as he straightened up to stare at Regulus. “I don’t care about any of that. I’m taking Sirius to St Mungo’s, no matter what.” 

Regulus’ eyes were wide with panic, as they had been what seemed lifetimes ago, the first time they’d mentioned the Order of the Phoenix in the Black Family crypt. “You _can’t_. I’m his brother, I say you can’t!”

Remus continued to stare at Regulus. He felt his own heart beat in his chest once, and again, and again. “Yes,” he said at last, very softly, but utterly sure. “You’re his brother. But I’m the man who loves him, and I’m not letting Sirius die.”

Regulus stared back. There was so much in his eyes – grief? Regret? Ghosts of all the pleasant brotherly moments he and Sirius had never shared? Remus didn’t know him well enough to read it all.

Then Regulus dropped his gaze to his own hand. He unfurled his fingers, to reveal what lay protected there in his palm. “I can feel how evil it is,” Regulus whispered. “I can feel it reaching out from inside there, trying to pull me in.” He looked up at Remus, clear-eyed now. “I’ll take it, and destroy it. And…you’ll look after Sirius, won’t you?”

Remus could feel Sirius’ heart beating under his hand as he met Regulus’ eyes. Remus swallowed thickly, all the emotion and fear of the night crushing down on him at once, now that there was time to stop and feel. “Yes,” he said. “Of course. I’m going to keep him safe.”

Regulus nodded once, resolute, and closed his fingers carefully back around the Horcrux. Remus could see a faint light emanating from it, pulsing out from within Regulus’ hand. Regulus stowed the locket securely inside his robes and when he withdrew his hand again, it held a folded bit of parchment in place of the Horcrux.

“This is for Sirius,” he said, placing it in Remus’ free hand. “Make sure he gets it, okay?”

Remus looked at the note in his hand and nodded.

Then together they stood, to carry Sirius out of the cave and to safety.


	7. Chapter 7

Sirius’ eyelids fluttering open was the most welcome sight Remus had seen in a long, long time. He waited, holding Sirius’ hand but not speaking, letting him come fully awake. It had been a long, waiting night at St Mungo’s, but Remus hadn’t wanted to leave Sirius alone for a moment.

Sirius levered his head up from the pillow and cracked a grin at Remus. “Look at that,” he croaked from between dry lips. “I’m not dead.”

“No, you wanker, you’re not dead,” Remus said, rolling his eyes. Not how he’d meant to greet Sirius when he finally returned to the land of the wakeful, but all the worry and frustration and affection came rolling out as soon as he opened his mouth. “Not for lack of trying, though.” 

“Hey,” Sirius muttered, flopping his head back down but still grinning like a loon. “I was saving the world.”

Remus shivered to think how true that might be. What if Regulus had never found out about the Horcrux and they’d all gone on and on fighting, never understanding why they could never seem to defeat Voldemort for good? Or what if Regulus had found the Horcrux but hadn’t come to them? What if he’d tried to tackle the impossible task of retrieving the locket alone, what might have happened then?

“Do you want some water?” Remus asked, instead of giving voice to any of that. It was all over now, and thankfully it had come out all right.

“Water, oh, Merlin, yes,” Sirius rasped. “I think I might never drink anything but water ever again.”

Remus doubted that, but he smiled. It was good to see Sirius making jokes. The Healers had assured Remus he would recover fully, once the countercharms had taken effect and the worst of the potion was out of his system, but it had been hard to believe that as Remus sat by Sirius’ inert form, clutching his hand, all through the long night.

He reached for the water glass and held it to Sirius’ lips. It was one of the special St Mungo’s kind, charmed not to spill even when sipped from a reclining position. Sirius drank gratefully, and sighed in relief as Remus set the glass back down on the table beside the bed.

“Better,” Sirius said, in a more normal voice. Then his expression turned sober. “Where’s Reg?”

Remus gripped Sirius’ hand a little more tightly. “He’s gone. I think he’s fine – he was fine the last I saw him – but he disappeared with the Horcrux. He means to destroy it, and I think he wants to be sure there’s no chance of it harming anyone else, so he’s determined to do it alone. Also…I think he’s still afraid, Sirius. Even after the brave and dangerous thing he did, I think he still believes the Order would torture or kill him for having once followed Voldemort.”

He’s an idiot,” Sirius growled.

“Yes,” Remus said gently. “Maybe so. But he’s an idiot who’s been inculcated with that way of thinking from a very young age. You can’t expect him to lose that fear all at once. I think he’ll come back with time. And meanwhile, he’s going to destroy the Horcrux, so Voldemort will be one step closer to being mortal, and we’ll be able to defeat him someday.”

Sirius met Remus’ eyes with a very precise sort of look. “You’re thinking what I’m thinking.”

Slowly, Remus nodded.

“That there are more of them, out there somewhere,” Sirius went on. “That someone like Voldemort would never have made just one Horcrux.”

Remus nodded again. “It’s an extraordinarily good thing that Regulus was able to find out about that one, and it’s going to make a huge difference that we know about them at all. But no, I don’t think it’s the only one. I think there are more, probably many more.”

“We’ll find them,” Sirius said, with such conviction that Remus couldn’t help but believe him. “With all of the Order working on it? Of course we can do it. Prongs’ll want to help us search, and Lily, and Pete.”

“Er,” Remus said, with a jolt of renewed horror. He’d managed to forget about this part for a few moments, in the joy of seeing Sirius wake up.

He hadn’t wanted to read the note Regulus had handed him. He knew very well it was intended for Sirius, not him, and he’d felt guilty looking at it. But for all Remus knew it might have contained crucial information about the potion Sirius had drunk or its cure, and in the frantic rush to St Mungo’s and then the excruciating wait for the Healers to tell Remus whether or not Sirius would be all right, he hadn’t been able to keep himself from opening Regulus’ note, just in case.

What he found inside was not what he had expected. Even after a night of turning it over and over in his mind, Remus still didn’t know what to believe.

Now, he withdrew the note from his pocket, and handed it wordlessly to Sirius. As Sirius read, his face took on first a frown of disbelief, then a storm of rage and betrayal. 

“Peter,” he breathed. “Peter is a _spy_? No, I don’t believe it.” He looked up at Remus in a panic. “Is it true? James – Lily – do they know?” His eyes pleaded with Remus, begging for it to be some cruel joke of his brother’s, not real.

Remus wanted so much to set Sirius’ mind at ease, but he couldn’t lie. “I – I don’t know. I really don’t know, Pads. I can’t see that Regulus would have any reason to make something like that up. But…it’s Peter. I can’t believe that of him.”

He didn’t want to believe it. Peter the underdog. Peter, who’d laughed at their jokes, helped them pull pranks, always been so eager to please. Peter who was their _friend_. What Regulus wrote couldn’t be true. It must be a mistake.

But Remus had had a long time to think, during the slow, still hours of the night he’d spent at Sirius’ side. And when he’d sent a Patronus to James and Lily early this morning to tell them about Regulus and the cave and the Horcrux, he hadn’t done the same for Peter. Just in case.

“Fuck!” Sirius exclaimed. “Fuck that bastard. That rat.”

“We don’t know if it’s true,” Remus cautioned, even as anger stabbed inside him. This was one betrayal that, if true, he didn’t know how he would ever forgive. “James and Lily are coming soon, as soon as official visiting hours start,” he said. “We’ll figure it out together, okay? We’ll figure it out.”

Sirius was breathing hard. “We can’t let him know about the Horcrux. Peter can’t know.”

“I know.”

Because if what Regulus told them was true, if Voldemort had a spy he believed was feeding him the choicest bits of information from the heart of the Order of the Phoenix, then the Order could make good use of that fact. And if Voldemort believed his Horcruxes to be his own great secret, and the Order could conceal from him that they now knew… It would give them an advantage in the war, at last.

Sirius’ eyes were wide and anxious. Remus reached out to cup one hand against his jaw. Sirius still looked terribly pale, but he was _alive_.

“Please don’t worry,” Remus whispered. “We will figure this out. I promise you.”

Sirius stared back at him for a long time, then finally relaxed and leaned his cheek into Remus’ hand. “Yeah,” he said, his voice still a little rough. “Okay, Moony. I believe you.”

Remus slid his hand higher, into Sirius’ hair, wildly unkempt after the night’s dramatic adventures, and Sirius butted his head against Remus’ palm until Remus smiled.

“This has all been a very strange night,” Remus murmured.

Sirius flashed him a crooked grin. “My deranged family, huh? If your lot showed up at the door, we’d probably sit down for tea. My relatives, before you can blink you’re in a cave full of Inferi trying to abscond with a Dark Lord’s evil magical artefact.”

“Sirius…” Remus said. He hated to add even more gravity to this conversation, when Sirius was here in front of him whole and alive and happy again. But this was something too important to let it slip by. “Pads…” he began again. “What you said…I don’t know if you remember everything you said, during.”

A shadow crossed Sirius’ face and he nodded once, curtly.

“I forgive you,” Remus said softly. “I don’t know if I ever quite said it, but I do.” 

Sirius’ face crumpled in pain, and Remus hated himself for causing it.

“I forgive you,” he repeated. “Completely. So let’s – let’s close that chapter, okay? You don’t ever have to apologise again for things that happened when we were still in school. We’re past that. Okay?”

Sirius swallowed thickly, and nodded.

“And you haven’t failed anyone,” Remus pushed on, daring to say it, although he had always hesitated to bring up Sirius’ fraught family past. “Your family failed you, not the other way around. And you saved Regulus last night, there’s no question about that.”

“I only did for him what I should have done years ago,” Sirius said, sounding angry at himself.

“No,” Remus said firmly, because this part he was sure about. “What you did back then was to get yourself free. That had to come first. But last night, you gave Regulus the chance to get away too, and choose a different path for himself if he wants to.”

Sirius sighed, like his heart was breaking all over again.

“Speaking of which,” Remus hurried on, trying for anything that might take that sadness and guilt from Sirius’ eyes. “How in Merlin’s name did you manage to convince Regulus to let you drink the potion instead of him?”

Sirius rolled his eyes sideways, embarrassed. “I invoked my status as the true heir of the House of Black.”

“You _what_?” As long as Remus had known him, Sirius had hated the mere mention of being heir of anything.

“I invoked my status as the true heir. Which I am, even if I don’t want to be and my family don’t want me to be. You can burn people off tapestries as much as you like, but under the most ancient magic of the family, I am heir and Regulus is bound to do as I say.”

Remus boggled at him. This, Sirius had definitely never mentioned before. “How did you do it? I didn’t hear you say a word.”

Now Sirius really looked discomfited. “I didn’t have to say anything. I just looked at him the way Father used to do to me, and he knew what I meant. He didn’t have any choice after that. I’m not proud of it,” Sirius hastened to add. “I swore to myself I would never use power the way Father used his power over us. But I couldn’t let him drink the potion, Remus. He’s my brother. My little brother.” 

“I know,” Remus said softly. “And you saved him. Truly, Sirius. He has a chance now at a different life.”

There weren’t words enough to make him see what a good thing he had done. Instead, Remus leaned in and kissed Sirius, gently at first, mindful that he was still recovering. But Sirius kissed back, hard, and Remus lost himself in it, the feeling of Sirius warm and alive beneath him.

“Anyway,” Sirius said, when they broke apart, both out of breath. His hand caught the back of Remus’ neck, and held him close. “I think _now_ I’ve earned the right to go bother Prongs and Lily while they’re trying to unpack from their honeymoon, don’t you?”

Remus laughed so hard he nearly choked. Sirius was still Sirius, his own maddening, lovable, wonderful Sirius, and he wouldn’t have him any other way.

 

**THE END**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap! Thanks so much for reading! 
> 
> If you're interested, here are...
> 
>  **My other Remus/Sirius stories:**  
>  • [On a Windswept Cliff](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2066574/chapters/4492539) (the Remus/Sirius gothic romance AU!)  
> • [The Fall of the House of Black](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12462843)  
> • [Northern Sky](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12526136)  
> • [Dust and Soot and Silence](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2348966)  
> • [Hangover Cures](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2642246)  
> • [Shipwreck Against Your Eyes](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2642282)  
> • [Never Say Never Never](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2707922)  
> • [Boys in Space](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1736696) (silly little outer space AU)  
> • [Fantastic Beasts and How to Win Their Hearts: A Retelling of Beauty and the Beast](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4978381/chapters/11434138) (co-written with stereolightning)
> 
>  **My other stories that feature Regulus:**  
>  • [Brothers](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4300509)  
> • [Tea, No Sympathy](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1078921)  
> • [Two Brothers Down a Dark Alley Sometime in 1979](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1087122)  
> • as well as [The Fall of the House of Black](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12462843)
> 
>  **And for that matter, why not toss in:**  
>  allll [my Remus stories](http://archiveofourown.org/series/81364)


End file.
